Old Complete Monster cleanup thread
Welcome to the Complete Monster proposal thread! This is the thread where new Complete Monster examples are vetted, approved, and written up. If you're looking for the general cleanup thread (for cuts, rewrites, expansions, and the like), please go here
Important: Before suggesting any new examples, please read the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List; if you have any questions, the odds are high they are answered there. Additionally, please check here for the earliest date a work can be discussed (usually two weeks from the U.S. release date) and whether the work has already been reserved by another user.
Here is how the process works:
- If you have a candidate to propose, you can simply come right in and propose them! If the character's run is brief, such as a single issue of a comic book, then a simple summary of their actions and any potential redeeming qualities will be enough; for longer-running candidates, an effortpost (EP) might be helpful for organizing the proposal. An EP is not outright required, but please be mindful that if a post becomes too clunky and unorganized, it can be very hard for other people to follow.
- After the proposal, there will be a 72-hour discussion and voting period, where people may ask questions and vote on the candidate. The number of upvotes must outnumber the downvotes by at least five for the character to be considered "approved".
- Three days after the proposal has been made, if the character has been approved, you may post the writeup (the text to be posted on the trope page itself) on the thread and send it to the drafts page. Your candidate will soon be added to the CM subpage. If the work has a page, you should add your candidate to the relevant YMMV page. Voila! It's that simple!
Outside of this process, we do have a few ground rules:
- To keep the thread moving at a reasonable pace, there are some restrictions on when a proposal can be made. There should only be a maximum of four EPs posted both per page and per hour to ensure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle; additionally, each individual troper should only be proposing or writing up characters from a maximum of three works at a time (from initial proposals to end of their voting period). If your proposal would fall outside of either of these guidelines, we'd like to ask you to please wait until they would fit within; feel free to type them up on an outside document, and then when the time comes, you can just copy, paste, and post!
- No plagiarism of any kind. This is a very serious matter site-wide, as the website could get in actual legal trouble over this; as a result, this can very quickly lead to mod intervention. This can take many different forms:
- Direct plagiarism, i.e. wholesale copying. This is not only the easiest to find, but is also the most likely to warrant quick moderator intervention. To be clear, quoting in some places is perfectly acceptable, but it has to be very clear you're quoting from something else and it cannot be anything longer than a sentence or two - if you're quoting an entire work summary from Wikipedia, no one is going to believe you've actually consumed the work, so even if you cite your source, your candidate will be downvoted anyway.
- Self-plagiarism. Even if you can prove that you wrote the same text in both places, the site itself can't contain any of the duplicated text. If you already wrote something once before, it's not too hard to write it a second time.
- Using another site's work as a template for a proposal. Just because you don't copy and paste something directly doesn't mean it's any harder to detect if you're basing parts or all of your proposal on text someone else wrote. To be clear, this doesn't violate site rules and won't lead to mod intervention, but just like if you directly plagiarize, no one will believe you've consumed the work if you're clearly basing your proposal on something else. This thread largely operates on the honor system, and tweaking someone else's work to pass it off as your own is one of the fastest ways to lose trust.
- Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").
- If you are the first person to downvote a candidate, please provide an explanation of why when you do so. We're here for discussions above all, and a hit-and-run downvote doesn't facilitate anything.
- If a work is already reserved by another user, please don't comment on the work or any potential characters worth discussion before the discussion date. We know how exciting it is when a work has a keeper that you're waiting to talk about, but it's not fair to the person who reserved the work who is just as excited to lead the discussion to see the discussion getting spoiled before they get to do it. On the other hand, if the reservation only has one name attached, shoot them a PM - they may be down for a collaboration, which will get you in on the fun as well!
- Please keep the thread on-topic. While discussing the trope is fun and we encourage people to enjoy it, questions like "who's your favorite CM" are off-topic and can lead to thumps. That's the kind of question to take to people's PMs if they're willing. Similarly, while we encourage friendliness and familiarity with other users, posts should always have some kind of thread-relevant purpose; for instance, if you want to wish someone a happy birthday, feel free to, but if it's the only thing in the post, it's off-topic and needs something else alongside it. Again, though, while we strive for a friendly atmosphere, this is not Facebook; life updates are fun, but unless they have some kind of impact on your thread participation, please do not bring it here - we have Yack Fest for that.
- Please refrain from asking anything along the lines of "How Did We Miss This One?" In almost every case, the answer is simply "No one thought about it before". This Is a Wiki where everyone has different interests, and the fact that people missed a particular candidate, even one that seems like a textbook example of a trope or a character who is particularly iconic in pop culture, means absolutely nothing. The question is disruptive, has a simple and consistent answer, and provides nothing to any discussion.
- If you are suspended from parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
- For users who are suspended from editing the wiki, you still have full access to this thread. You can propose candidates and write them up with no issues whatsoever; while you will have to ask someone else to post the entry to the relevant pages once it is done, all write-ups are considered thread-approved - as in, done by consensus - and thus doing so does not violate any rules regarding meatpuppeting.
- If you are suspended from the forums, your participation is limited but not impossible. It is still possible for a forum-suspended user to assist in creating the write-up for a character who has already been approved; as previously mentioned, write-ups are inherently considered a consensus-based edit and thus not tied to any one particular user. However, you can not assist in the proposal of a character; as a proposal is based around the forum rather than the wiki, doing so with a forum suspension qualifies as meatpuppeting.
- Please keep all discussions "in-house".
- What other wikis use for CM equivalents is irrelevant here.
- Please be wary of using other wikis, Fandom or otherwise, as sources of information. They are just as fallible as a site like Wikipedia in regards to accuracy because they can be edited by any user, just as this site can.
- Do not attempt to force a communication with an author in an attempt to gather evidence or settle a debate; besides the fact that this is a YMMV trope and thus author intent has variable weight depending on the circumstance, doing so may cross the line into drama exportation, which is prohibited site-wide.
If you would like to use an EP for your candidate, here's the general format. This format does not have to be followed exactly, but these are the main topics that need to be covered:
What is the work?
This is a brief summary of the work you're going to discuss. We don't need a full plot summary here, just however much we need to understand going into the discussion — it can even be as simple as quoting the summary on the work's page.
Who is the candidate and what have they done?
This is essentially the character's biography — who they are, their story, the crimes they commit, and, preferably (though not required), what happens to the candidate at the end. It does not have to include every single thing they ever do — for some villains, we'd be here all day if that was the case — but it should include the highlights of their journey.
Any redeeming qualities? Freudian Excuse?
This is where any potential redeeming characteristics or tragic backstory should be discussed. Do they have a tragic past? Do they show that Even Evil Has Standards or Even Evil Has Loved Ones? Maybe a Pet the Dog moment or two? This is where these should be discussed in full. Not every potential redeeming moment is a clear-cut disqualifier, but we should hear of any potential issues to ensure the character is discussed in full.
Are they bad enough?
A Complete Monster has to be particularly vile by the standard of the work they appear in. Therefore, you should look at what the character does compared to similar characters in the same work. This takes into account things like:
- Their resource level (a human Serial Killer can't stand up to an alien Omnicidal Maniac, but they can be bad by the standard of other human serial killers)
- The amount of time they have to work with (such as a one-shot character versus long-running antagonists)
- The quantity vs. quality of their crimes compared to others (someone with a lower victim count but far more visceral and personal crimes could be considered as equally bad overall as someone with a higher body count but less horror involved)
Essentially, this section is an analysis of the kinds of villainy shown in the work and an explanation of why this particular character's villainy stands out within it.
Final verdict?
This is where you post your final conclusion on the character in question. You can continue elaborating on your reasons or even just say a simple "yes" or "no"; at this point, we've heard everything we need to hear.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This thread tackles very serious and dark matters on a daily basis. We will be discussing things like murder, rape, torture, human trafficking, crimes against children, and in particularly dark cases, several of these issues at the same time. We keep a lighthearted air, but all candidates carry the general assumption that these are awful individuals committing disgusting crimes. We ask that if you participate, you do so with the requisite seriousness such dark topics require; exclamations of how gross something is, whether serious or sarcastic, are disrespectful to the topics at hand, and if you cannot handle such topics, please do not participate.
And that's everything you need to know. Welcome to the thread!
Edited by Twiddler on Jan 17th 2024 at 5:42:49 AM
Alright, since the thread has slowed down a bit after the initially rush, I'm getting my own EP out now. It's from a worked released in November 2022, so this should be fine.
The Work
The Dark Eye is a popular Germany Fantasy RPG taking place on the continent of Aventurica. It's your typical medieval Fantasy world with dwarves, elves, orcs and wizards. Compared to Dungeons & Dragons magical items and powerful magic are being far less common. It also put's less focus on combat.
Since there's a lot of stuff in the EP people without knowledge of the game probably wouldn't understand I made a short list to explain certain terms.
The Grey Guild: The biggest Mage Guild in Aventurica with 18 mage academies and about 2,500 members. The Grey Guild encourages it's members to obtain more knowledge and is supporting magical researches. The guild is a diverse bunch. Among their members are unworldly scholars as well as business savvy mages selling their services to rich customers.
The Black Guild: The smallest Mage Guild with with only five academies and about 1,000 members. The Black Guild believes that magic shouldn't be restricted by things like ethics or law. This makes the guild very attractive for researchers with unpopular or morally questionable believes. Despite their questionable reputation, the Guild is officially recognized by most nation and you can't just arrest a Black Mage just for being a Black Mage.
Lowangen: An independent city with a population of 12,500. Lowangen has two Mage Academies: The Hall of Power (Black Guild) and the Academy of Transformation (Grey Guild). They don't get along at all.
Night Soul: A magically created soul that can be implanted into a victim. The Night Soul follows every order of it's creator with absolute loyalty and has access to all the memories of the host. It can take control of the host at any moment and can erase memories or even implants fake ones in his host's mind.
Lines of Power (literal translation): Invisible magical lines than run across the continent. The strength and length varies from line to line. Often they have an affinity to a certain school of magic. Usually, it's easier to cast spells on a line of power and the spell becomes stronger as well, but there's also a risk of unwanted side effects.
The candidate
Oswyn Puschinske (image){kind=small}
), the founder and Spectability (headmaster) of the Hall of Power. A powerful 130-years old archimage specialized in mind manipulation via magic. As character he has been around a long time but never played a big role in any story or adventure. At least not until last year.
His deeds
Many, many years ago Puschinske was approached by Elcarna Erillion von Hohenstein, a mage from the Academy of Transformation. Elcarna wanted to help some people infected with the highly contagious Zorgan Pox but the city officials refused to let them inside the walls. With the Black Mage's help Elcarna smuggled the sick people in the basement of Puschinske's mansion. While Elcarna tried to heal them, Puschinske was more interested in studying their fear in the face of imminent death. Yet despite all precautions Puschinske got infected and thus the disease began spreading inside Lowangen's walls, killing many citizens. Puschinske survived the disease, but gained several pox scares. Both mages decided to keep their role in this outbreak a secret to avoid consequences but from that day on Puschinske was holding a grudge against Elcarna .Recently Puschinske managed to obtain to knowledge on how to create a Night Soul and he already knew the perfect candidate for it: Elcarna, who by now was not only the Spectability of the Academy of Transformation but also the Convocatus Primus (leader) of the Grey Guild. Initially he only used the Night Soul to weaken the Grey Guild and strengthen the position of himself and his academy, but then he began to think bigger!
For as long as he lived, Puschinske wanted to establish a continent-wide Magocracy where spellcasters (like himself) would lord over the remaining population. And with the Night Soul inside Elcarna he had the perfect tool to finally achieve his master plan. During the next Allaventurian Convent - a large gathering of thousands of mages from all three guilds -the Night Soul was supposed to secretly absorb the energy from a nearby line of power. Eventually, the high concentration of magic in a single spot (Elcarna's body) would cause a magical catastrophe killing anyone nearby. Thus, taking out the leadership of all three guilds as well as several other powerful mages that could oppose him. Then he would put another Night Soul into to the body of the Empress of the Middenrealm gaining control of the continent's largest nation and getting one step closer to a Magocracy.
Luckily for everyone else, two powerful Black Mages put two and two together and figured out that Puschinske was using a Night Soul to control Elcarna. Wanting to stop their rival from gaining more power as well as protecting the Black Guild from his actions, the two mages created a powerful magical artifact that was supposed to expose and exorcise the Night Soul. For maximum exposure one of their agents activated the artifact during a meeting of mage from all three guilds in the Academy of Transformation. While it revealed the Night Soul it wasn't strong enough to destroy it. Instead the Night Soul created an indestructible magical dome around Elcrana and telepathically informed Puschinske about what just happened.
Puschinske then decided that the best course of action would be to kill all potential witnesses. How did he plan to do this? The same way he wanted to wipe out the guilds at the convent: Having the Night Soul absorbing the energy of a nearby line of power to cause a magical disaster that would not only destroy the Academy of Transformation but roughly one third of Lowangen as well.
Wasting no time, he also began spreading rumors that the Grey Mages had planed to take over the city and sent out the teachers and students of his Academy with the instruction to kill his opponents. So, when a group of mages led by the Player Characters made their way to the Hall of Power to confront Puschinske they were faced with crowds of angry citizens that wanted to stop the "evil Grey Mages". This tense situation was made worse by the fact that Mages from the Hall of Power often hidd among the crowd and using mind control magic to escalate the situation.
Eventually the player characters and a few of their allies managed to confront Puschinske inside the Academy. He then did what every villain worth his salt does: Monologuing! OF course, this was also him stalling. Because while he revealed his evil plan to heroes and offers them to join him, he also secretly casted spells to mind control the player’s allies. Once the heroes (hopefully) refused his offer, Puschinske first ordered their former allies to kill them before eventually joining the fray himself. But in the end, the good guy’s triumphed and Puschinske died with his last word being: "This cannot be! I haven't allowed this!"
With his death the Night Soul was also destroyed and Lowangen saved from destruction.
Mitigating Factors/Freudian Excuse
As far as I know there are no. In the final fight with Puschinske he's supported by one of the academies teacher's, who is absolutely loyal to Puschinske because he cured him of his claustrophobia. Albeit it's never stated if Puschinske helped him for altruistic or pragmatic reasons. Considering his personality, I believe it's the later and not the former.
There was also trilogy of books about the setting's mage academies, describing each of them in greater details. Sadly, due to a disagreement between the publisher and one of the authors, the one that included the Hall of Power is no longer obtainable unless you want to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it on E-Bay. Theoretically there COULD be something in that book disqualifies Puschinske as a CM. But considering how he's portrayed in the rest of the source material I seriously doubt it.
How bad is he compared to the other villains in the setting?
There are over 300 adventures, dozens of novels and even a few video games taking place in this setting. Most adventures have the P Cs slowing a murder mystery, foiling a conspiracy, exploring a dungeon or helping a village this is threatened by some kind of beast. The usual Fantasy RPG stuff. Villains whose planes involve killing thousands of people are rare. Those who want to achieve this without an army behind them, are even rarer. There are no exact numbers how many people are living in Old Lowangen compared to the other two quarters of the city but it's probably at least a few thousand. His original plan was even worse. Depending on the location up the 5,000 mages can attend an Allventurian Convent and they usually taking place in big cities, meaning a lot of collateral damage. Body-count wise Puschinske does stand out.Now as far as resources go, we have to compared him with at least two other C Ms: Aarbilar and Rosthaut who planned to destroy a fey realm inside a Crystal Ball (inhabited by least a few hundred fey) which would've resulted in the destruction of large parts of the settings biggest a human city killing thousands of people. Aarbilar was a wizard living among beggar while Rosthaut only commanded about two dozen Gargoyles. Puschinske is a powerful Mage - not Top 10 but defiantly Top 100 - with a whole Mage Academy behind him and many connections in both the Black Guild and Lowangen.
My Verdict
I'm going to give him a![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
. But I understand if people are going to down-vote him because of the larger resources.
What about the Night Soul? Is it a CM?
Since I know, some people are going to ask this question, I'm already having an answer perpared. No, sadly the Night Soul can't be a CM. It has enough personality – basically a smug, evil version of Elcarna – but the adventure explicitly states that the Night Soul has no agency on his own. It can make strategic decisions, like creating the barrier around Elcarna when exposed, but it only follow his creators instructions.
Professor Gigachad
Also I ask again where are we gonna put the The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power entry on the page? Since there seems to be no good place to put it.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Sorry Ord, can't help you there!
Thanks G and I look forward to voting there and on the others you've got planned too!
Yes to Ladja as well!
Ladja
Not the Eye
I think we can just have Rings of power section on the page.
For dark eye guy. I guess if Mass murder is relatively rare it is okay.
Ladja
to Ladja
Professor Gigachad
Could we possibly squeeze the show into the Peter Jackson trilogy tree, as I know the series is based on that. Or is it to little to do so?
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Lies and Violence!
Feels iffy to me, I think it's supposed to be an alternate continuity. Could we just split the film folder into general animated and live action adaptations?
Yes to Ladja.
Professor Gigachad
That could work. That is probably what I will end up going with.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
RIP Toriyama
Yes to Ladja
And yeah, I'm with Emerald, the show is meant to be alternate continuity in its ways
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
to Bishop Ladja.
I like that idea too!
The Ultimate Lifeform
Lies and Violence!
Next up for Worm, here's an ally of the one currently-listed character, Jack Slash. Jack is the leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine, a group of powerful supervillain serial killers that roam around America and regularly wipe out entire cities for shits and giggles. Their violent escapades ensure that they always have heroes—and even some villains—after their heads, but while the powerhouses that make up the Nine ensure some of them always manage to survive another day, they nonetheless have a very high turnover rate. Which brings us to one of their first members... sort of.
Who is Gray Boy('s clone)?
The single most feared and terrifying villain in the series, Gray Boy is an unassuming child with the power to create time loops. Already sounds bad, right? Reliving one moment over and over for eternity, with not even Gray Boy able to undo his power. But you know what's worse? Gray Boy is the only one who can change anything about these loops. Said changes include, I don't know... stabbing you? Burning you with a match? And you have to relive that. Over. And over. And over. According to Gray Boy, his loops will last "until well after the sun goes out," and his victims often go completely insane. Sometimes they'll find their way back to sanity—not much else they can do but reflect on themselves. But then they'll go insane again. And fix themselves again. And crack again. Forever and ever and ever.
Now, the original Gray Boy apparently wasn't too lucid, too affected by his own power to do much other than wander around and do whatever he was asked of. This led to predictable mass suffering when he was recruited as a founding member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, but Gray Boy was finally killed when his soul was stolen by resident crazy person Glaistig Uaine.
Unfortunately, that didn't stop him for long. Some years later, Jack discovers he's destined to end the world—he doesn't know how, but a powerful precog has predicted he'll somehow set off the apocalypse, and the idea excites him. To prepare, he has his Dragon Bonesaw create a clone army of the Slaughterhouse Nine, nine copies made for every member past and present save for Bonesaw and Jack themselves... and Gray Boy. He knows full well he'll only be able to keep one under his control.
From the get go, there's clearly something very different about the Gray Boy clone. Part of this is Bonesaw's fault—she had access to his DNA and the powers held within but not his memories, so she implanted other people's memories while "growing" him to shape a personality as close to the original's as possible, then let his powers fill in the gaps with whatever data it retained of the original. However, when he awakens, he already knows things she did not program him with—for instance, Bonesaw's name. Also, he's now a real sadistic piece of shit.
Part of Jack's plan to end the world involves challenging a kid named Theo to kill him lest he murder a thousand innocent people. To initiate the challenge, he sends Gray Boy to attack his family. Gray Boy films himself trapping them all in loops to show to Theo later, taking his baby sister for Jack to use as a hostage. He takes the time to tell Theo's stepmother that he intends to return with the sister later and loop her right in front of her, before attacking some government guys sent to protect the family and forcing them to spill details they got from the precog on how Jack's supposed to end the world.
Some fighting ensues, and Jack has his climactic fight with Theo... only for Gray Boy to turn on him and loop him when he starts losing, frustrated that he's retreating instead of being a "predator." Fortunately, before he can do too much more damage, he gets shot in the head by Foil, a girl with the power to shoot through anything—even the screwy time loop effect that prevents Gray Boy from aging or in anyway being physically harmed by anything.
Jack still manages to set off the end of the world, but he's unfortunately not in any position to witness his triumph. Two years later, one of his old Slaugherhouse friends comes back to visit him trapped in the ruins of LA and sees that he's been reduced to an Empty Shell. Someone has fortunately discovered a way to break Gray Boy's loops, and after dealing with another apocalypse they're planning on releasing his many victims. Jack, however? They intend to just collapse the loop and kill him, finally putting an end to the twisted monster who led the Nine and ridding the world of their wretched legacy for good.
Mitigating factors?
Gray Boy loops are universally considered the most horrifying Fate Worse than Death in the series, I don't think I need to reiterate as to why. No problem with heinousness whatsoever.
Things are a bit more confusing for agency, but it's ultimately nothing too mitigating. While the original was too loopy to qualify, the clone is a sadistic psychopath with more than enough individuality to turn on Jack for being too boring. Bonesaw may have crafted his personality, but as his mysterious knowledge of her goes to show—and I still have no idea how that happened—he is in no way beholden to the memories she gave him. The other Slaughterhouse Nine clones have agency—one of the Damsel of Distress clones becomes a major protagonist in the sequel—and while they're programmed to obey Jack, Gray Boy's betrayal again makes clear his powers free him from whatever Jack and Bonesaw conditioned him with.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
How many people does the clone Loop? A few? Dozens? Hundreds? I'm leaning yes, but considering how jacked the standard is...
Also, are we gonna need a Worm page?
Puschinske wanting revenge seems understandable, if misguided, but he goes way beyond that.
Edited by ACW on Jan 18th 2023 at 5:58:36 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Showtime!
to Ladja
Lies and Violence!
I think only seven successful loops that I can remember, but Gray Boy easily passes over baseline anyway—his is a case of quality over quantity. Again, this is universally considered the worst fate worse than death in the setting, a literal eternity of torture with your brain constantly aware but never able to adjust to the pain.
No one comes closing to outdoing this level of torture, and other flourishes, like recording himself to taunt Theo and leaving his mom unharmed in her loop so she can hear her friends scream in torment for eternity, further push him above and beyond.
And yes, we'll probably need a Worm page, but I have that already drafted with write-ups and everything. I'll take care of it when we get up to seven or so.
Edit: Okay, I completely forgot about this because it got completely negated within a single chapter—Gray Boy loops Scion, secretly the Big Bad but at this point in time merely believed to be the strongest superhuman and the world's only hope against the three giant kaiju that blow up cities on a tri-monthly basis. Scion breaks out of the loop once the Nine are defeated, but Gray Boy was trying to take away the one being who has singlehandedly kept the world from being utterly annihilated by these creatures, something Jack gleefully points out once he notices.
Edited by EmeraldEmperor on Jan 18th 2023 at 6:23:37 AM
Berserk Button: misusing Berserk Button
to Ladja from Dragon Quest: Till the End of Time.
Emerald when we say "get to" around seven or so...how many are we doing here?
Lies and Violence!
Only eleven, including Jack. Worm and its sequel are each about as long as A Song of Ice and Fire, there's a lot of stuff going on.
Not the Eye
Glad to hear not have all potential panned out, but you found another one.
I'd just ask that you space them out reasonable and make sure to give us a good heinous standard rundown....that's a lot for one work
Lies and Violence!
Can do, was planning on slowing down a bit anyway.
You could do what Star is planning on for the RWBY fanfic and create one big post to just go over the whole heinous standard and just link to it in the EP's
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Yes to Ladja.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts